TNB Tech Minute: U.S. Prosecutors to Deliver Opening Statements in Huawei Criminal Trial

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Countless companies invest in AI tools without tying them to tangible business outcomes. Join McKinsey later to learn how leaders rewire their organizations for sustained impact and value.

Imani Moise (0:15)

Here's your morning TNB Tech Minute for Wednesday, September 9th. I'm Imani Moise for the Wall Street Journal. US prosecutors will make their opening statements today in Brooklyn, in a case that accused this technology giant, Huawei, of systematically stealing trade secrets from American companies and misleading banks about its business in Iran and North Korea.

It's a rare instance of US prosecutors putting a corporation, but none of its employees, on criminal trial. Prosecutors say Huawei employees who stole valuable information from competitors got bonuses and that the trade theft operation began over 25 years ago. Huawei says that the overarching narrative of the case is and that it plans to fight to prove its innocence.

US security agencies accused six Chinese AI companies yesterday of systematically exploiting American models to train their own systems. The agencies, including the National Security Agency and the FBI, said the companies have engaged in, quote, aggressive, malicious, and targeted distillation activities at an industrial scale. Distillation is a technique in which a new AI model taps the expertise of an existing one to improve its own capabilities. US officials say Chinese companies have conducted millions of exchanges with American models, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok. A spokeswoman at China's Foreign Ministry said today that the US should stop making accusations and smearing China. And Google says it will spend more than $15 billion to develop AI infrastructure in Finland, the latest big-ticket commitment from a US tech giant to bolster its AI capacity overseas.

Google says the commitment is its largest single investment in Europe and that it will fund data centers and other infrastructure, including clean energy projects. The company said once operational, the facilities are projected to support 7,000 jobs. And that's your TNB Tech Minute. We'll be back this afternoon with more.

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AI transformation is more than a tech initiative. It requires a broader rewiring of human skills and ways of working. Here's Dan Swann, senior partner at McKinsey.

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One of the biggest unlocks we see is the human being capabilities around the technology. Whereas before, you may need to be really good at analysis, now the skill might be how do you prompt these tools to get the right answers and outcomes. And so for us, it's a really big priority to help companies to understand, how do you need to change the operating model of your organization, and change the underlying capabilities of the people that are interacting with the technology. And when you see that all humming together, it can be really, really special.

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Discover how McKinsey helps organizations rewire to outcompete with AI at mckinsey.com/techmoves.

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